The plot of My Super-Ex Girlfriend was ripe with comic possibility: the private life of a superhero. And, to be fair, Reitman’s film occasionally does more than simply graze the surface: Our superhero, on a failed double-date, throws a fit when certain annihilation threatens to undermine her social life. But instead of making her character acutely sympathetic—how often does a world-saving, power-endowed person get the chance to be like everybody else?—she is depicted as unstable, even mentally broken. A love-starved stalker.
Which is sad, considering this has never been done before. Sure, we’ve been offered scenes of Superman and Lois Lane in bed together—an image, I should mention, that undoubtedly scarred my younger self and will most likely propel me into therapy around middle-age—as well as Spiderman and Batman working out their relationship issues as Peter Parker and Bruce Wayne, respectively. But there was so much more lurking beneath the surface of My Super Ex-Girlfriend, and I could sense it trying to get out. Uma Thurman’s G-Girl doesn’t understand what it’s like to be breakable, just as Luke Wilson’s Matt Saunders doesn’t understand her craving to be “normal”—so much depends on her willingness to save a faceless world that can never get close to her.
Call me an idealist for trying to find meaning in this mess. It’s a truly awful movie, with poor writing and terrible acting. But compared with the homogenous Good Luck, Chuck rom-coms that now seem to congeal out of nowhere on a bi-weekly basis, this one actually had some promise. Too bad.
by Adam Balz | Source: Showtime
19 Oct 2007 12:18 PM | Submit Comment
